White noise

So things have gotten rather stressful of late, but this is not a bad thing, just a tiring one. Several big changes have happened (in the following order, I think):

1) My sister-in-law came to live with us here. This is exciting, but also a huge change to be dealt with. We love her and are happy to have her, but things have necessarily changed around the house, and getting used to those changes will take some time. Plus, now there are fun things to deal with regarding her schooling and such.

2) We're pregnant!!! This actually probably happened before (1), but since we found out during the moving process, I'll call it (2). But it's exciting! We've already heard and seen the baby's heartbeat! The due date is Valentine's Day, which is smack in the middle of the spring semester, but there's nothing to be done about that. We'll just have to deal. It's also made me start thinking about finances and time management and housing space... leading to...

3) We're moving to a new, larger apartment. The move will happen sometime between 9/1 and 9/12. Anyone who feels like helping, feel free to let me know. We can use all the help we can get.

4) I'm working on the last course for my certificate in computational harmonic analysis. The project is taking quite a bit of time and is rather stressful, but when I'm done, the paper should also count as a scholarly paper for my master's degree in scientific computing, so it's two birds with one stone. Once this is done, it's time to think about my candidacy and dissertation prospecti, which I've already begun talking to my advisor about. Should be done with the master's degree (if everything goes well) at the end of the spring semester 2008. That will also finish the requirements for candidacy, so I should get doctoral candidacy at the same time. Then I'll only have the dissertation left. Wish me luck on that. Now if I can just get this paper done...

5) I'm working on a new topic, compressive sensing, for the past few months at work, so this has meant learning new things fast, which always tends to be a bit stressful. On the whole, this is the least stressful of all. Also, I'll be going to a workshop (SSP 2007) in Madison, WI, at the end of the month related to that... just before we move.

I think that's all of the massive change going on at the moment. All in all, things are just flying by like white noise. I try not to get too bogged down in things, but rather to let them float along with me where I can grab them and pull them close when needed. Doesn't always work, but it's a nice visualization.

As always, feel free to leave me a comment, and for my friends reading this, keep me posted on how you are doing. Here's hoping I don't get lost in the noise.

Bow shock -- the start

Well, this is a beginning. What will come of this experiment is yet to be seen. My goal is to write here when I have something to write about. How often that may be, I do not know, but this is a beginning, and beginnings are generally good. I welcome you to follow along as you may, and we can see together where this goes.